


love you like that

by pumpkinless



Series: make me feel [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Apologies, Background Shiro/Throk, Begging, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Face-Fucking, Face-Sitting, Flirting, Frat Boy Shiro (Voltron), Holding Hands, Jealousy, M/M, Making Out, Making Up, Marking, Mirror Sex, Nipple Play, Pining, Shiro in thot clothes, Shiro's motorcycle, Size Kink, Underage Drinking, background Pidge/Hunk, if you count Keith's jealousy over Throk's existence near Shiro as a pairing, series complete!!, sweatpants dick, truly embarrassingly emo Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-08-21 19:07:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinless/pseuds/pumpkinless
Summary: Keith spends a week moping. Shiro gives him one last chance to get it right.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i am sad to say that this is the last official part of this au, but it's the one i've been waiting to write the longest. big big thanks to @[eternal-heatstroke](eternal-heatstroke.tumblr.com) for editing!!
> 
> title from "love you like that" by dagny, which is both a total jam and the entire reason this series grew to such a monster
> 
> for thirst reference, shiro's [shorts](https://bodyaware.com/collections/mens-sports-shorts/products/glistening-satin-track-shorts?variant=5270417080358) and [sweatpants](https://bodyaware.com/collections/mens-sportswear/products/the-skinny-jogger?variant=39236523783)

Keith wakes up crusty.

Specifically, he wakes up unshowered and definitely not wiped down, in the same clothes he wore last night minus the hoodie he threw on the floor in a fit of pique, to the shrill sound of his phone ringing right next to his ear. It only has six percent battery left but it’s his mom calling, so he answers.

He grunts into the phone, already regretting opening his eyes. His head pounds at all the noise, and then at Keith’s general existence.

Instead of a response, silence comes through the line. 

“Hello?” he asks, with effort.

Krolia’s dry laugh echoes too loud in his ear. “How’s the hangover, kid?” 

Keith doesn’t bother asking what tipped her off; he squeezes his eyes shut and groans in shame. It’s not that he necessarily tries to lie about a completely sober and party-less lifestyle to anyone, parent included, but it’s not something he broadcasts. Especially not when he feels like the ass-end of day-old roadkill.

“I’m fine,” Keith manages, which exhausts him just enough to demonstrate how completely not fine he is.

“Pidge looking out for you last night?” Krolia’s voice is amused, but her concern is genuine.

Keith says, “Um,” and has to think about it for a second. He didn’t black out, he can tell as much, but getting his brain to remember anything at the moment is a tall order. “No, it was—I was with another friend. Shiro.”

“Oh,” Krolia says, sounding pleased. “Who’s Shiro?”

That’s when it hits Keith. 

_ Oh, fuck,  _ he thinks,  _ Shiro. _

Keith moans in pain and embarrassment, squirming around on his bed until he can shove his face into a pillow and try to suffocate himself. It doesn’t work, but the sensation of his shirt ungluing itself from his skin is enough of a punishment, and Keith curses himself for not having at least the good sense to clean himself off last night. He’s disgusting and he smells like dried semen, and it’s probably the least amount of penance he can do in reparations for last night. 

God. What was he thinking?

Krolia only fell back into his life a few years ago and their relationship is still relatively new, but Keith is pretty sure this is the kind of thing moms are supposed to be on your side about. So he says, “I think I broke his heart.”

Another beat of silence. “Is Shiro cute?”

“Yes,” Keith admits. Very cute. Usually, Keith is blinded by thirst when he looks at Shiro, but if he takes a step back to think about it with his brain and not his dick, Shiro is one of the cutest people he’s ever met. Which is strange because Shiro also has shoulders you want to throw your legs over and an ass you want to run into the ground. Not to mention his hands, god. 

But. Keith knows a lot more about him now. The texting turned out to be his downfall. One of Shiro’s biggest goals in life is to have five separate kittens sleeping on his body at once. When he blushes, the scar across his nose doesn’t turn red with the rest of his skin. He can’t stand green smoothies but he drinks them because he knows they’re good for him, and if he puts enough protein powder in, apparently it drowns out the taste of spinach with a chalky flavor that’s mildly less pungent.

“Very cute,” Keith amends, a little reluctant, but he can’t keep the truth silent.

“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone,” Krolia says in that blithe way that means she’s fishing for information and doesn’t care that he knows it. Keith is pretty sure that if she were any other parent, she would sound disappointed at not having already heard, but Krolia only seems thrilled at the prospect that Keith has met someone. She’s conveniently forgotten the heartbreak part, though.

“I wasn’t seeing him,” Keith says, “not really.” It comes out melancholy, and he wishes he could take the words back.

“You are a very bad liar,” Krolia says pleasantly, and Keith groans loud enough to make his head throb. Not that it takes a lot right now, but he regrets it anyway. “How long has it been?”

Keith blinks up at his ceiling and resigns himself to interrogation by a woman whose twenty year career in the CIA made her very used to getting exactly what she wants. She’s impossible to evade. “About a month.”

“And you already broke his heart.”

“He’s had a thing for me longer than that,” Keith says. He doesn't know why he's defensive about it; it's not as if Krolia particularly cares.

There's silence until her voice, oddly sympathetic, asks him, “Why do you sound so upset if he's the one with the broken heart?” 

Keith breaks down and tells her the whole story—most of it, at least, carefully scrubbed of references to shower sex, reckless one night stands, and the exact number of times Shiro's put his tongue in Keith's ass. It's good to get it out to someone who isn't sick of hearing about his problems.

“You like him,” Krolia says.

“I mean, everyone likes him,” Keith says, oblivious to the meaning of her words. “He's really smart, friendly. Good with people.”

“Sure, but you can still have a crush on him.”

“I guess.”

Krolia doesn’t push the topic because that’s not her way, but even as the conversation shifts, Keith is left to sit with her final words on the matter. Even after he makes his excuses about needing to go study, he lays in bed for another ten minutes while the phrase  _ you can still have a crush on him  _ reverberates madly around his brain.

Keith doesn’t have a crush on anybody.

***

Pidge starts talking before Keith even sits halfway down in his side of the booth, cafeteria plate burning hot in his hands from sitting too long under the warmers.

“I didn’t get laid,” she announces, not sounding half as upset about it as Keith imagined she would. “Surprisingly, that’s not your fault, considering that the last time I saw you was when you and your equally disgusting boy toy were trying to turn the dance floor into your own personal sex club. Thanks for making me watch you dry hump someone in public, by the way, I really needed to see that.”

Instead of answering, Keith pushes a sustained, strangled whining noise out from his chest and buries his face in his arms. The cafeteria table smells like cleaning solution and plastic, but it’s better than facing Pidge. His plate of a single sausage link and maybe half an egg, scrambled, looks anemic in comparison to Pidge’s meal, bursting with fruits and other delicious breakfast foods that would look really good any other day but today. It’s revolting to look at her.

“Get laid?” Pidge asks.

He nods. “Why didn’t you?”

The answer he’s expecting doesn’t come; instead Pidge sighs loud enough to startle Keith. She’s annoyed.

“We got all the way back to his place and I shot myself in the foot.” Her fork stabs hard at her plate, spearing a slice of honeydew with unrestrained malice. “He’s in my systems dev class. He’s the only freshman other than me in there, and I got a glance at his homework and. Well.” She huffs at her piece of fruit. 

Keith’s brow knits together. It’s a confusing enough sentence that he sits up to look at her. “You . . . didn’t get laid because you looked at his homework?”

“Dumbass, I didn’t get laid because I don’t think I can sleep with someone who doesn’t believe in  _ double-modulating his systems properly.”  _

“Obviously,” Keith says, as if he has any clue what that means.

Pidge chews like she has something to prove. “I liked him,” she says mournfully. “He had really big hands.”

“I know the feeling,” Keith mutters, but Pidge isn’t listening.

“And we actually had a really good conversation after me and Matt kicked his ass at beer pong. He’s smart. Fantastic kisser, which I know because we made out for an hour before leaving the party.”

Keith snorts. “And you think you still have room to mock me?”

“We had the decency to do it in the pantry.”

“Shiro and I fucked in that pantry.”

A different voice interrupts them, scaring the living shit out of Keith as soon as he sees who it belongs to. “No, you definitely didn’t. I would have heard about it six times if you had.”

Matt Holt graces them with his presence, sliding into the seat beside Pidge with a plate almost overflowing with sausage links drenched in syrup and peanut butter. Objectively, it’s disgusting, but also objectively, Keith is so hungover right now that the mere concept of placing food into his mouth is enough to make his stomach lurch. He can’t believe he wasted a meal swipe on this.

“Deigning to eat in the cafeteria?” Pidge says, as if she’s actually oblivious to the sudden tension. 

“It’s the only place I can get endless meat for the small price of eight dollars,” Matt says. His eyes only leave Keith’s once in a judgemental sweep down his person, and since Keith doesn’t know how to back down from a challenge, this is officially a staring contest.

“You’re disgusting.”

“Yup.” Matt pops the last letter. “You wanna know what else is disgusting?”

Pidge groans and throws a grape at the side of Matt’s head. “Don’t do this in front of me, I’m a neutral party.”

“Do what? Murder your best friend for breaking  _ my  _ best friend’s heart? I would never. Not in front of my baby sister.”

Alright, that’s all Keith needs to hear. He drops Matt’s gaze for the good of his health and starts to stand, taking his nearly untouched plate with him. Maybe it’s cowardly to run away, but the look in Matt’s eyes suggests that he’s only sort of joking about the whole murder thing and Keith is uninterested in sticking around to find out what, exactly, it would take to push him over that edge.

“Nice to see you two,” he says, a feeble attempt at making peace.

“Leaving so soon?” Matt asks, saccharine. 

Keith looks him over one more time before making his decision. Matt’s jaw is set in the same way as Pidge’s when she’s raring for a fight, and his eyes are cold, unflinching. Keith is no coward, not even close, but he doesn’t quite feel up to meeting this particular challenger. Not when his stomach turns at the sight of Matt stuffing a whole sausage link in his mouth, a liquid mixture of peanut butter and syrup sliding down the handle of his fork.

“Sorry,” Keith bursts out. It comes out too genuine to take back, and Matt’s eyes widen slightly. 

Keith hopes Matt carries the sentiment back to Shiro.

He books it.

***

“Sorry about Matt.”

Keith sighs and looks up from his homework. Pidge bears a peace offering in the form of a scone—strawberry, by the looks of it—and the set of her face is genuinely apologetic. She waves it at him until he takes it in both his hands, placing it on the notebook in front of him so he can start clearing his homework from the other half of the table to give her room to sit.

The sounds of the coffee shop wash over them as Pidge settles into the opposite chair. In silence, she places an obscenely large cup of what’s probably half filled with espresso on the edge of the table, and pulls out her laptop and textbook to match Keith’s own set up.

This is part of the reason why they work so well as friends. Pidge pushes him constantly, but she has a unique sensitivity to boundaries and knows when she’s either pushed too far or not far enough. It’s a riot of a friendship, but she’s one of the most important people in his life. They understand each other.

“I think I'm going to get a tattoo,” Keith says.

Pidge hums, disinterested. “You're supposed to cut your hair.”

“What?”

“After a break up. You're supposed to cut your hair.”

Keith pauses all movement and glances at Pidge, staring down at her textbook. “I didn’t break up with anyone,” he says, enunciating each word clearly. Pidge just snorts and shrugs one shoulder.

Right. Not talking about Keith’s problems.

“So you don’t think I should get a tattoo?”

“No, you should totally go get a trashy knife tattooed on your forearm because you’re refusing to deal with your actual problems.” That stings, mostly because it’s . . . pretty much the kind of tattoo Keith was contemplating.

He sighs.

Pidge cracks after less than five seconds. “Okay, god, fine, I need the gossip. What the hell  _ happened?” _

Keith groans and tries to drown himself in his coffee. He wasn’t paying attention while adding sugar and it tastes like the worst kind of sugar high but he can’t stop drinking it. His cursed sweet tooth loves it. Focusing on that dilemma means he doesn’t have to answer Pidge for a precious few more seconds.

“You didn’t have the conversation with him,” she guesses. 

“Yes. No. Well.” Keith huffs and starts to pick apart the scone into bite sized pieces, arranging them in the best concentric circles he can manage. “I thought I did.”

“Do you even remember it?” A fair question, considering all the shots Keith did.

He admits, “It’s hazy. And I . . . was definitely vague. But we talked.” It’s difficult to concede the last part, but Keith is starting to realize he maybe needs to work on his interpersonal communication skills, and Pidge is a non-terrifying entity. “I should have been honest with him from the start.”

Pidge raises her eyebrows.

“You were right, okay?”

She grins with all her teeth, more terrifying than any shark. “You know just how to sweet talk a girl. Fine, so I talked to Matt, here’s how you’re gonna get Shiro ba—”

“No,” Keith says. His heart pounds in his chest with sudden anxiety.

_ “No?” _

“I hurt him,” Keith says, every word like a dagger on his insides. “And I want to apologize for that. But I’m not—the situation hasn’t changed.”

“The situation,” she says, deadpan.

“I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“Right. Now I remember why we weren’t talking about your problems.”

Keith shrugs one shoulder and eats the center of his scone circles. He doesn’t eat enough baked goods, that’s for sure, because once he’s had a bite, not going back for more is impossible. Maybe that’s why he never buys baked goods.

Pidge changes tactics on him. “Are you sure?” she asks, voice a little quieter and a little smaller. “You haven’t even thought about changing your mind?”

And Keith hesitates then. Because the truth is, he has thought about it—in great detail, even—but what he keeps coming back to is that he’s not sure what the reason is anymore to  _ not _ change his mind. Everything he’s ever told himself about what Shiro’s feelings really are has finally been proven embarrassingly wrong, and while the fact remains that Keith doesn’t have the time for a relationship, well. Keith’s phone says it’s only been seventeen hours since Shiro last texted him, and already his life feels a whole lot emptier.

It’s kind of sad how much he wants a frat boy to text him a picture of a protein smoothie followed by three flexing arm emojis.

Keith buries his face in his hands. Inexplicably, tears prick at the corners of his eyes and he heaves out one long, shuddering breath. “Pidge.” His voice cracks, so he tries again. “Pidge, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well, that was obvious.” Her voice is kind, maybe kinder than she’s ever been toward him.

Trying not to cry in a coffee shop over a boy and a hangover is the lowest Keith has ever been. Theoretically, it can only go up from here.

“God.” He sniffs and blinks three times to clear his eyes. “Sorry. You didn’t want to talk about this.”

Pidge puts her highlighter down. “No,” she says slowly, “I didn’t want to listen to you whine about how hard it is to have a hot boy want to date you. But if you’re going to do your own emotional labor here and just need someone to be there for you, I’m your girl.”

Keith looks at her, miserable. “You’re a really good friend, Pidge.” It isn’t what he meant to say, but it’s no less the truth for it. She’s the best friend he’s ever had, and while Keith would probably never be able to bring himself to say that out loud while still sober, he thinks the sentiment hangs in the air between them.

Pidge’s eyes widen in shock and she ducks her head quickly. “You too,” she mutters after a long second. “Even when you’re being an idiot.”

They lapse into silence, throwing themselves back into homework. Keith resolves to buy Pidge a case of her expensive energy drinks next time he gets to the store, soft of as an apology and a thank you for being his friend despite everything. She deserves it.

Keith is just settling back into his work when a shadow falls over their table, sending a shock of fear through Keith that Matt has followed him to his other safe space. He looks up, startled, into the face of a very large, vaguely familiar man with an extremely nervous expression on his face as he peers hopefully at Pidge. When she looks up, his face splits into a grin and he waves at her. One of his hands hides something behind his back.

“Pidge!” he says, oblivious to the way Pidge’s eyes have gotten huge and her cheeks hint at redness. It’s like he doesn’t even notice that Keith is there. Pidge stammers out a hello in response, and then it clicks for Keith where he’s met this guy before—he was Lance’s beer pong partner. Hunk.

“What are, uh, what are you doing here?” Pidge asks. She looks simultaneously terrified and embarrassed, and Keith has a sneaking suspicion why that is.

“Oh, I work part time in the kitchen,” Hunk says. He rocks up onto his toes. “Um. I brought you this?” He thrusts a paper bakery bag out to her. “I just thought—I mean, you know, I had such a great time with you last night and I’d like to hang out with you again if that’s okay?”

“Uh,” Pidge squeaks. 

“It’s vegan?” Hunk says. Keith doesn’t remember all his sentences sounding like questions over beer pong, but what does Keith know?

“Oh. I’m vegan,” Pidge says, as if she’s just realized this fact about herself.

Keith’s best friend used to be cool.

“Yeah.” Hunk leans forward to nudge the bag onto Pidge’s notebook. “You, um, you mentioned? Last night?”

_ Oh my god, _ Keith thinks,  _ is this what it’s been like, watching me and Shiro? _

Pidge’s hand spasms for no comprehensible reason and throws her highlighter on the ground. It rolls into the aisle and Hunk stumbles to pick it up for her. Pidge is bright red as she accepts it; Keith can’t remember ever seeing her quite this flustered.

They manage to stammer out a few more half-sentences at each other, and Keith thinks they’re trying to set up a date. Or pick a date. Or, more likely, never get a date because neither of them can string two words together fast enough to produce something resembling human communication. Is it wrong that Keith is enjoying this? It’s hardly the first time he’s seen Pidge talk to someone she’s interested in, but it is the most tragic.

“Here.” Pidge launches herself into action, tearing a corner of paper off her notebook and scrambling for a pen. “Here’s my number.”

The paper falls between their fingers and Hunk picks that up too. He isn’t deterred in the least, though; there are hearts in his eyes and the biggest grin on his face. “Cool—that’s, yeah, cool. I’ll talk to you. Soon? Yeah.” His eyes dart around, and he seems to finally notice Keith sitting right there. “Oh! Keith, hey buddy. Nice to see you and your, uh, nope, sorry.” Hunk slaps a hand to his neck. “Bye!”

Keith touches a hand to his neck in the same place Hunk had stared with dawning horror. He hadn’t looked at himself in the mirror before leaving his dorm room.

Pidge, still red as a firetruck, winces as they make eye contact. “I really didn’t want to think about where they came from,” she says, sealing Keith’s fate. Ashamed, Keith pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up, knowing it can only do so much but needing the barrier between his bruised neck and the rest of the world.

He puts his forehead down on his textbook and wonders if it’s possible to die on command.

***

The week passes in a strange haze. The post-sex ache in Keith’s body fades by the time he goes to bed Sunday and the bruises on his neck lighten considerably by Monday morning. He does his homework, checks his phone, eats dinner with Pidge or another friend, checks his phone some more, puts on Shiro’s hoodie as soon as he arrives in the privacy of his own room, plays a video game, and falls asleep staring at his phone screen pretending he’s not hoping Shiro will text him. Or Snapchat him. Or even just post something on Instagram, which Keith doesn’t even have an account for, but he has the username  _ shirothehero  _ memorized and it’s difficult to stop himself from checking in.

The fourth picture on Shiro’s Instagram is still the selfie they took while in Target. It’s preceded by a picture of Shiro with some of his brothers, a shot of new leaves bursting on tree branches, and a frankly shitty picture of the sunset from the frat house porch.

Keith is surprised Shiro hasn’t deleted their selfie yet.

Wednesday, he bites the bullet and taps on it, watching every excruciating detail cover his phone screen. It has 394 likes, some comments Keith doesn’t care to read, and a caption that’s just three coffee cup emojis. It’s still a really good picture.

Turning his phone off, Keith lays in the dark and contemplates his life to the soundtrack of his roommate’s heavy breathing. Keith hasn’t even jerked off since stumbling out of the frat party—it feels wrong to do when the only thoughts he can conjure are of Shiro’s body above him, below him, around him. He thinks about sex and he thinks about the twist of Shiro’s mouth while he admires Keith, the gut-punch gasp of him riding Keith’s cock, the way his hands touch Keith like he’s something precious. It was all right there in the way Shiro looked at him. Shiro opened himself up to vulnerability with Keith in a way that Keith has never experienced with a partner.

The thought of touching himself to the memory of Shiro calling him  _ baby _ makes Keith feel sick.

Maybe Keith should make the first move. It’s not like texting goes only one way—he has Shiro’s number, too, and nothing to lose. Nothing that he hasn’t already squandered, at least. 

Shiro's last message is from the afternoon before the party.  _ see you soon ;),  _ it says. Keith remembers scoffing at the message to cover up the flip of his stomach and placing his phone face down so he wouldn't respond to something as ridiculous as a winky face and what is surely an innuendo of some sort, somehow. 

According to the time stamp, Keith didn't last five minutes before replying  _ :) _

He has nothing to lose, so why is it so hard?

It takes five minutes of hemming and hawing to type the word  _ hey _ and another five to press send. Sent at 12:31 a.m.

Keith shoves his phone under the pillow and flops aggressively onto his other side. He closes his eyes.

His phone vibrates and they fly open.

Keith stares at his phone in disbelief. A single question mark sits under Shiro’s name, burning its way into his retinas. Keith is no social butterfly, but he knows how to recognize a hint when he sees it—Shiro has never greeted him with such a lukewarm response before.

But Keith started this. He can’t back away now.

He types  _ how are you,  _ backspaces, and sends,  _ what’s up? _

Keith lets the screen go dark in his hand, and he counts to sixty-seven before Shiro’s response lights his phone up and nearly blinds Keith in the process.

_ brushing my teeth _

_ cute  _

Keith regrets it as soon as he’s sent it, but it’s too late. He does think it’s cute that Shiro is texting him while brushing his teeth, but that is . . . not where their relationship is at right now.

_ what do you want? _

Keith groans out loud and then cuts himself off because he still has a roommate. He tugs the hood even tighter over his head so it hangs in his eyes and he hides behind it. The problem, though, is that it has the effect of reminding him that Shiro's cologne is so deeply embedded in this hoodie that it may as well be woven into the fibers. It's the same hoodie he remembers Shiro dressing in after they left they gym, the one he probably shoves his freshly cleaned body in every day on his way back to the frat house. Keith wants to steal it.

But it seems wrong to take it when Keith can't even consider himself an ex rightfully repossessing a past boyfriend's clothes. And isn't that the exact problem, that every thought Keith has about this manages to compare himself to someone who was actually  _ dating  _ Shiro? They weren't dating. Never were, at least not to Keith and regardless of what Shiro thought. Keith never approached their relationship like it was anything more than sex. He doesn't have a right to Shiro's hoodie.

He hesitates, thumbs poised over his phone. 

_ i wanted to give you your hoodie back _

Shiro's reply is immediate.  _ just drop it by the house whenever _

Keith's heart thumps and he swallows, sinking deeper down into the hoodie so he can press the cold metal zipper into the dip underneath his bottom lip.

_ sure,  _ he responds. Sure, that would be fine.

Shiro doesn't text him again.

***

Friday is obscenely warm for a mid-April day. It throws the entire campus into disarray—Keith picks his way home from the library with Pidge through crowds of students sunbathing and laughing under the relief of hot sun coming to liberate them all from winter, taunting them with the promise of a warm, beautiful weekend. Keith has half a mind to join them, and it’s too bad he has a pile of homework taller than Pidge after a week spent doing more moping than he’s willing to admit.

Keith guides a texting Pidge out of the way of two overly touchy athletes, swerving their route onto a lesser used path. It’s a longer walk back to their dorm building this way, but he wants to take a moment to bask in the fresh-smelling air. Birds sing in the trees and he swears he can hear the Beach Boys floating on the wind.

“Yo,” Pidge says, “walk to Walgreens with me.”

“Right now?” 

“After dinner.”

Keith frowns. That interferes with his planned night of sulking before the homework weekend from hell hits.

“I know you need shampoo.”

Keith does need shampoo, but he’s too scared to ask Pidge how she knows that.

“Fine,” he says. “Hey, where’s that music coming from?”

It turns out that Keith is not imagining the Beach Boys playing off in the distance. It’s coming from right in front of their building, in the block of empty university land right next to the west campus parking structure. It should be empty—no one ever uses it except for overflow parking and tailgating during football season.

What it should not be is an extended frat party and car wash extravaganza.

“Oh shit,” Pidge says, finally looking up from her phone. They stand across the street to survey, and she pushes her glasses up higher on her nose to squint more clearly at the scene in from of them. “I forgot this was today.”

"You forgot what was today?" Keith asks, deadly, but he’s already figured it out.

There are banners all over what used to be a very peaceful, if ugly, field. It must be every frat and sorority on campus that has one up, with varying degrees of artistic credibility behind them, and “I Get Around” pumps loudly through the general vicinity without any shame. There are people all over the field: students in beach chairs, hammocks hung up in the trees surrounding the lot, a huge game of frisbee off to the side, and a grill churning out burgers in the corner. The party has even spilled over to this side of the street—what Keith took to be regular students out enjoying the day are actually here for a specific reason. They’re not even bothering to hide the alcohol. Altogether, it looks a lot like a beach party transported onto grass, except for the fairly long line of cars driving up onto the edge of the field—normal people in their cars, Keith judges, here for what appears to be a very . . . clothes optional car wash.

It's not the half-naked car wash itself that seals Keith's fate, but what's at the center of it. The entirety of Sigma Epsilon Chi, Shiro’s frat, is there alongside Alpha Beta Omega and Kappa Epsilon Gamma and—

Keith is going to stop demonstrating his knowledge of all the campus Greek life for his own sanity now. He swears he never knew them before he started talking to Shiro.

"It's their yearly spring fundraiser," Pidge says.

"What,” Keith says, flatly. He can’t believe what he’s looking at.

Each house has its own outfit—Delta Iota Kappa are all decked out in sparkly teal leggings and tiny tank tops bearing the name of their sorority in a matching blue font. Beta Omega Mu stuffed their entire collective into neon purple spandex bodysuits.

And ΣΕΧ is—well, they're making Keith wonder if it's possible for him to get any closer without tipping his hand. They've got on white shirts or tank tops paired with soft pink booty shorts that have the frat's logo on the ass, the black text visible even from clear across the street. Shiro is easy to pick out. He’s tall and also, incidentally, the hottest person in a three mile radius.

"Um," Keith says. Shiro hasn't noticed them, but he runs up to greet the driver of a car that's nearer to Keith and Pidge, and Keith just about dies on the spot. The shorts are made of a silky fabric that swishes as he jogs. They barely cover his ass, and they don't hide anything up front either.

Keith doesn't know if it makes him dizzy or hard.

Pidge throws an elbow at his side once he's stared for too long, and Keith's face burns as he tries to look at literally anything but Shiro's ass popped out while he bends to take money from a well-meaning citizen inadvertently getting the best show of their life. Keith is intensely jealous of the driver of that car simply for the view they probably have of Shiro's collarbones right now, bared by the low cut of his tank top and endlessly tantalizing. Keith misses those collarbones.

But he has Shiro's thighs on full display. Keith has never had such prime opportunity to stare and he ignores Pidge beside him in order to take full advantage—Shiro's thighs are thick with muscle, each one the size of Keith's head and strong enough to crush him between them. Shiro bends down to look at something on the tire of the car and they bulge obscenely under the shift in weight. Keith knows how powerful they feel when they're working between Keith's legs, how soft the hair on them is under Keith's hands when he holds on tight while Shiro rides him.

Shiro's thighs are a work of art that put even the most stunning Greek sculptures to shame. Keith isn't afraid to say they deserve to be plaster cast and preserved in a museum for the benefit of all humankind.

"You," Pidge says, "are drooling. Stop."

If Keith were a more verbose person, this would be the perfect place to whine about how upsetting it is to want Shiro so much after being told in no uncertain terms that he can't have him. It's really easy to see why Keith embarked on this whole fiasco in the first place—Shiro is the hottest man he's ever seen.

It's almost unfortunate, then, that he's also one of the nicest.

Negotiations finally end, and the car pulls into the spot Shiro indicates to the driver, almost directly across the street from where Keith and Pidge are standing like dweebs. Keith sinks back, as if standing on the very far edge of the sidewalk will prevent Shiro from noticing his presence.

“Hey, guys!” A tall woman with a riot of silver hair bounces in front of them, blocking Keith’s view with her wide, sparkly smile. It’s actually sparkly, he realizes after a double take—her lipstick is just pink glitter, the same color as the bright highlights on the tops of her cheekbones. It matches her short skirt and tube top emblazoned with the ΑΣΣ logo. He hears Pidge choke next to him, and he fervently agrees. “Welcome to our annual Greek Fest!”

“Uh,” Keith says. The enthusiasm in her voice is scary and Keith finds it difficult to look at someone wearing sunglasses with pink lenses.

“You can buy food and drink tickets over there.” She points to a white tent set up at the other end of the field. “And sign up for our challenges or enter our raffle there also! All our proceeds this year are going the local animal shelter to help fund adoption fees and medical treatment, and we’ve got some excellent games planned for later. Thanks so much for coming and helping us meet our goal!” She claps her hands together and beams at them before running off just as quickly as she came, leaving Keith dazed and mildly confused in her wake.

“Wow,” Pidge says. 

Keith starts to agree, but then his eyes find Shiro again. He’s stripped off his tank top, leaving him in nothing but Chacos and the tiniest shorts anyone has ever worn. Keith's brain explodes.

He makes some kind of noise—a mangled, disgusted, aroused mass of sound that just bursts out of his chest without permission or consideration. Pidge actually gags and punches him in the shoulder.

"Are you seriously going to stand here and watch this?" she demands.

Keith answers, "Hbnbdndb."

He knows Pidge at least recognizes Shiro is hot. She'll be fine, he reasons, and that's the last reasoning he does for a while.

If Keith had to name his top three sexual fantasies as of yesterday, nothing about car washes or booty shorts would be on that list. The first one probably would have been him bending Shiro—someone over a desk in the back of the library. The second, maybe just in general really good oral. The third, sitting on someone's face and smearing spit and come all over their lips and jaw and crying out with overstimulation while gripping Shi—the person's hair in his fists.

What's before him right now blows it all out of the water.

Shirtless, Shiro starts to rub his body all over the car. Or something. That’s what it looks like he’s doing from Keith’s viewpoint, like the sponge is secondary to his flexing shoulders and the sheer area of naked skin. One of the ΣΕΧ boys helping him wash the car tosses a bucket of water at the hood and accidentally drenches Shiro, making him laugh raucously. It hurts Keith’s heart to hear, and it hurts his dick to see Shiro dripping wet, the tiny silken shorts clinging to every curve of his ass.

It’s like Keith’s own personal softcore porn. Almost, except for the fucking crowd gathering around Shiro.

“I shouldn’t be watching this,” Keith whispers. 

He means that it feels wrong to objectify Shiro so blatantly, especially when Shiro doesn’t want anything to do with him, but Pidge makes a noise like she’s been stabbed. “I did not want to  _ know _ that,” she whines, turning away.

Keith turns red. “I’m not—it’s not—”

“Don’t ever talk to me again. I’m going to my room.” 

She trudges away, and Keith makes to go after her, to drag himself away from the spectacle of a car wash, but something catches his eye. It’s a guy in a neon purple bodysuit. He’s hot, more muscular than Keith, a couple inches taller than Shiro. Broader than Shiro. His hair is a barely there buzzcut and he’s very, very interested in Shiro.

Keith can’t blame him. 

There are a lot of objectively hot men just across the street—and a lot of people watching over there and on Keith’s side of the road—but Shiro is still the most beautiful one of them all. His metal arm gleams, looking recently polished, and the big smile on his face is even more blinding. The interloper says something too quiet for Keith to make out, but Shiro’s laugh is clearly audible. The way he throws his head back, clutching a soapy sponge to his chest, is breathtaking, and the guy touches an easy hand to his waist.

Watching Shiro lean into it is the worst thing Keith has ever seen.

It’s impossible to stop watching as it happens. Shiro shoulders the guy in a playful way, bringing them into even closer contact, and he smears the sponge down the front of the bodysuit. The guy squawks and drags Shiro into his arms in order to stop the sponge from getting near him again. Shiro just laughs and pushes back into the touch.

That’s what finally gets Keith to turn around and stomp away, heading after Pidge to their dorm building, a hot feeling in his throat as he accidentally shoulders someone he vaguely recognizes from his floor. Of course Shiro would move on quickly. Maybe he had a crush on Keith for a little while, but it’s not as if Keith is that memorable at the end of the day. Shiro has plenty of options; that’s just what happens when you’re beautiful and friendly and popular. He’s a bright light, brighter than anyone Keith has ever known, and it’s only right that people see that in him and want to be pulled into his orbit. 

And Keith never had a claim on him. He could have, sure, but at the end of the day, it’s Keith who pushed Shiro away. It’s Keith who looked him dead in the eye after calling them nothing more than friends who fuck and walked away, knowing it was something he would never be able to take back.

It’s funny, almost, that this is what it takes for Keith to finally accept why his gut churns at the thought of Shiro. Not dating Shiro is fine as long as no one else has got Shiro, as long as Keith’s the only person who gets to be in his bed, as long as Shiro never looks at anyone else and thinks,  _ I like you. _

Basically, he’s fine as long as Shiro acts like Keith’s boyfriend while Keith completely denies they even have a relationship.

But seeing Shiro with another man, seeing someone’s hands on him while Shiro welcomes the touch—that makes something ugly rise up in Keith. That crosses an invisible line that Keith never knew existed. 

He wants to be the one holding Shiro in his arms. Keith wants to stand publicly with him and touch each other in all those cutesy, proprietary ways he scoffs at when he sees other couples doing them. He wants to stare down a challenger for Shiro’s attention, not because he thinks Shiro would ever really consider another option, but because he likes the way Shiro’s eyes burn hot with desire when he sees the physical proof of how much Keith wants to be with him.

Keith shoulders open the door to his bedroom with tears stinging in his eyes, thinking,  _ I’ve been an asshole. I’m an asshole. _

He’s half in love with a boy who doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore, and it’s all Keith’s fault.

***

Keith’s homework and video game plans are summarily derailed in favor of the emergency bottle of whiskey he’s been hiding under his bed for the better part of the semester. He’s a wreck, and the burn of liquor doesn’t help but he holds onto the belief that it will.. 

He starts out watching Planet Earth on his laptop, headphones in to drown out the noise of the party going on outside his window, but a quarter of a bottle later, he’s scrolling through Shiro’s Instagram again, then his Facebook, then their text message history, and pining like he’s never pined before. Darkness falls, and the music shifts from Beach Boys inspired jams to Top 40. 

It isn’t even ten at night, but Keith is drunk off his ass. The only thing keeping him from texting Shiro to say he misses him is the look on Shiro’s face when that ugly fucker at the car wash touched him. Shiro is probably drunk with his frat brothers right now, living it up at a party just across the road. The event is open to all university students. If Keith wanted to, he could walk over there and insert himself into Shiro’s circle, get Shiro’s attention back. Convince him that even if Keith can’t give him whatever a taller, buffer guy could, he can still be good to Shiro. He can try to be better.

Keith has been well aware for a while now that he’s not a good enough person to deserve Shiro, but now he wonders if he’s even good looking enough. If that’s the kind of guy Shiro is interested in, Keith doesn’t think he can ever be that. Maybe if he really tried, he could bulk up, but he doubts he’ll ever grow a full foot overnight just to accommodate Shiro’s towering height.

Besides, Keith likes how much bigger than him Shiro is.

Maybe it was the sex that wasn’t good enough. Keith doesn’t know what more he could have given Shiro, but—but maybe. 

Maybe if he had texted Shiro the next morning and apologized for being drunk and an idiot. Maybe if he let Shiro use his body as repayment—it wouldn’t even be just Shiro getting something out of that, and it’s a selfish sort of apology, but it’s the best case scenario.

Keith presses his face into his pillow and pretends he isn’t crying. The worst part is knowing that Shiro would never take him up on that offer, would tell Keith that he didn’t need to do anything like that. Keith can see it in his mind—Shiro taking Keith’s face in his hands and kissing him, asking Keith to just talk to him next time, saying they can work it all out.

Fantasy Shiro is incoherent and far nicer than Keith deserves.

At 10:52, he gets it in his head that he needs to return Shiro’s hoodie to him tomorrow, but in order to do that, he has to wash it. So Keith stumbles down to the laundry room, probably stinking of liquor, and he stuffs the hoodie into a machine and swipes his laundry card. He forgets detergent but not a dryer sheet, and when it comes out of the dryer, he’s crying over a half naked selfie Shiro sent him two weeks ago and isn’t thinking clearly. He puts the hoodie back on, drags himself up to his room, and passes out.

It’s not his finest moment.

***

He regrets the entire fiasco in the morning.

Keith wakes up tangled in Shiro’s hoodie and nothing else, roommate having appeared at some point during the night. His mouth smacks when he opens it, dry and disgusting from drinking and forgetting to brush his teeth before he passed out, and he’s definitely more drunk than hungover. The room spins when he stands up, stomach roiling but empty.

The hoodie hangs off him, soft and tempting, making him want to curl back up in bed without facing the day. But the lingering determination from the night before sticks with him—Keith is going to return this hoodie. He’s going to get on the bus, go to Fraternity Village, knock on ΣΕΧ’s door, and run away as soon as he tells whoever answers that the hoodie belongs to Shiro. He’s going to move on from Shiro and his own feelings, and it’s that conviction that spurs him to the bus stop and all the way to the frat house’s front porch.

What Keith doesn't prepare for, mentally or otherwise, is Shiro himself answering the door instead of literally anyone else. He’s shirtless, because of course he is, and wearing the tightest, thinnest sweatpants Keith has ever been forced to endure the sight of. It is incredibly clear that Shiro is not wearing any underwear underneath them.

But once Keith finally gets his eyes off Shiro’s dick, he realizes that it would be kind to say Shiro looks well. His gaze deadens as he processes Keith's sudden appearance before him, and the drawn look of exhaustion under his eyes is out of place on his handsome face.

“Keith,” he says. 

Keith swallows hard. “Hi,” he says, voice cracking. “I, uh—you said I should bring this back.” He thrusts out the hoodie, staring hard off to the side so he doesn’t have to confront either Shiro’s face or the rest of his body. “I washed it.”

A beat passes, and then Shiro takes the hoodie from his hands. 

“Thank you,” he says softly. Like he’s talking to a stray kitten.

“Sorry,” Keith says, apropos of nothing.

“For what?”

The bite in Shiro’s voice makes Keith cringe backward, and his head snaps down to face the ground. The phantom sensation of all the crying Keith did last night still sings in his body, and it’s all he can do to hold himself together. He doesn’t think about what he’s saying. “I, uh, didn’t mean to interrupt your morning after, or whatever.” Keith kicks at the doormat. 

“My—what? Keith, why would you think—” Shiro cuts himself off. 

Keith’s stupid mouth answers the question that wasn’t asked. “I saw you yesterday, at the car wash. That guy was all over you.” He glances up at Shiro’s baffled face, but the confusion present there isn’t enough to get him to shut up. “I don’t blame you, he was hot.”

“Are you—are you talking about Throk?”

Maybe. Keith shrugs. “I should go,” he says instead, taking a step back from the door. “I just. I just want you to know I’m sorry, okay? I really wasn’t—I didn’t mean for all this to happen.”

“Keith, wait.” There’s something raw in Shiro’s voice that stops Keith in his tracks, poised to step off the porch. He turns back to Shiro when there’s nothing forthcoming, and Shiro hunches his shoulders. What comes out of Shiro’s mouth next activates his fight or flight response, but the intensity on Shiro’s face keeps his feet glued tight to where he stands.

“Can we talk?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you soooo very much to [hannah](https://twitter.com/eternalheatstrk) and [audrey](https://twitter.com/sheithinlove) for helping me edit this ridiculously long chapter <3 these are the people who make fics happen!!!

Shiro leads the way inside, pulling on his newly returned hoodie as he goes. Keith trails after him like a miserable dog—the three-second glimpse he gets of Shiro’s bare shoulders forces him to realize how much he misses Shiro and the easy way they share space. Now isn’t the time for Keith’s thirst, but even as he squishes that part of his brain down as deep as it will go, it still sees fit to remind Keith that he’s had his hands all over Shiro’s chest and it’s an utter shame to see it covered up. 

Still, the hoodie does nothing to detract from the sight of Shiro’s ass in his sweatpants.

“Do you want coffee?” Shiro asks. 

Keith feels like he should say no. He doesn’t want to commit to staying the length of time it would take to drink a cup of coffee, but Shiro takes one look at him and ducks inside the kitchen to pull two mugs down from the cabinet. 

“Thanks,” Keith mutters. He doesn’t ask for sugar. Two of Shiro's housemates are in the kitchen, sitting on rickety barstools and looking for all the world at least as hungover as Keith feels. Keith eyes them uncertainly—he doesn’t love the concept of an audience for whatever conversation is about to take place.

But Shiro takes him along a familiar path away from prying eyes, out the back door and onto the porch. Keith’s heart thumps; he has too many hazy, warm memories of this place.

“Over here,” Shiro says. He steps off the porch and walks over to a fire pit Keith has never noticed before, tucked into the corner of the yard. Cheap plastic lawn chairs surround the pit of cold coals; the whole setup looks vaguely dirty and just as lacking in class as the rest of the house. Keith clutches his coffee mug to his chest with both hands, not sure if he should sit or stand with Shiro. If Shiro sits, how close should Keith sit? Is right next to him too presumptuous, or if he sits one seat over is he—

“Okay,” Shiro says, turning to face Keith. He’s serious for the first time in Keith’s memory. “The first thing you need to know—Throk is straight. I’ve known him for two years and we’re friends.” Oh. “So there’s no morning after. Alright?”

Keith nods, mechanical.

Shiro stares at him for a moment, expression hard and defiant against whatever he sees in Keith standing before him. The mask cracks, and he covers it up with a sip of coffee.

“Can you just—can you tell me why you even  _ care?” _

“I wasn’t—” Keith stops short, not entirely sure what he was about to say. 

Instead of pushing, Shiro takes the sudden fall of silence to sit down on one of the chairs. It squishes into the mud left from last night’s rain. “I can tell you do,” Shiro says into his coffee. “I know you well enough, you wouldn’t bring that up if you didn’t care for some reason. So tell me.”

It’s stunning. Keith realizes just then that he doesn’t have a clue what to say to Shiro. He doesn’t have any excuses or planned speeches, not a single idea about where to start. It probably makes him look like an asshole.

“Um,” he stalls. He takes a drink of his coffee but it’s too bitter by far and Keith is a weak man. “It looked like you were flirting.” Good, baby steps. That was a sentence, at the very least. “And I—I assumed, since the last time I saw you act like that with someone was with me. So.”

“Throk has a girlfriend,” Shiro informs him. “She’s very nice and he wants to marry her.”

Right.

Keith shrugs a little and hunches into himself. “I didn’t know,” he says. “But I didn’t . . . I didn’t want it to be true.”

“You didn’t want  _ what _ to be true?”

With an aggravated huff, Keith throws himself into the chair next to Shiro. He doesn’t care if this is the proper, appropriate seat—he can’t have this conversation while hovering two feet above Shiro’s head. “I didn’t want him to be flirting with you,” Keith says, more venom in his voice than the sentiment really calls for.

It has the opposite effect on Shiro than Keith anticipated. His head drops, he cradles his forehead in one hand. “God damn it, Keith,” he says, “I have no idea what to do with that information.”

Keith doesn’t know either.

“I really fucked this up,” Keith says after a long, long moment of awkward silence. “This—this conversation, and everything with you, really.” Shiro doesn’t interrupt him to disagree, and Keith tries not to let that sting. “I didn’t know what to do, about any of it, and I just—” Words fail him.

“You could have tried talking to me.”

“Yeah,” Keith admits. “But I’ve—I mean, I never had someone actually like me before you. And how the hell am I supposed to know what to  _ do _ if I’ve never done anything like this before?”

Shiro doesn’t seem to have an answer to that.

If this is the opening Keith has waited for, he sure doesn’t know what to do with it. Apparently, as this conversation makes clear, Keith doesn’t really know how to do anything right when it comes to communication.

He’s content to sit with the silence for a bit and sort himself out, but Shiro surprises him with his own outburst.

“Fuck,” Shiro says. He sets his coffee cup on the ground so he can hold his head in his hands. It’s a very dramatic posture, and Keith can’t imagine what it is that Shiro thinks he’s done to warrant beating himself up like this. “I shouldn’t have kicked you out. We should have talked.”

Keith seizes onto that. “No,” he says. It’s the first thing he’s sure about, even though the look Shiro gives him is betrayed and hurt. “No, I—honestly, Shiro, I wouldn’t have listened.” It wouldn’t have been good for either of them to hash it out in the middle of endorphin crashes, tequila still singing through their veins. “I’m an asshole.” Keith says this like it should explain everything like he thinks it does, but Shiro looks considering.

“You’re not.” Shiro picks at something on his knee.

“I shouldn’t have called us friends with benefits.”

Shiro doesn’t object.

“I just—I wanted this to be easy,” Keith says, half a whisper. “It’s easy when I’m with you.”

The cool spring air nips at his nose, forcing Keith’s hands deep into the pockets of his coat, and he tries not to get his hopes up. Shiro doesn’t owe him anything, not after Keith shoved his feelings back in his face, but Keith can’t bear the thought that he could spend the rest of his life remembering Shiro as the one that got away. He just doesn’t know how to explain that.

“I really thought we were dating,” Shiro says, apropos of nothing. “The way you talked to me. I thought you just didn’t ever want to hold my hand because you weren’t into PDA, and last weekend you were all over me. It seemed . . . reasonable to assume.”

Okay. Keith can do this—he can follow that up and take the hint Shiro probably isn’t meaning to give him.

_ Be an adult,  _ Keith tells himself. He reaches out and touches the back of Shiro’s hand, the metal cool under his fingertips. Keith forges forward, wrapping his fingers around the back of Shiro’s hand and holding on. Metal clicks underneath his touch as Shiro twitches in surprise; the sensation is new and intimate, something Keith hadn’t paid enough attention to notice before today. 

Shiro is tentative, slow, recalcitrant. Keith’s eyes dart back and forth between their hands and the pensive look on Shiro’s face, and then they’re palm to palm, holding hands.

“‘S kinda cold,” Keith says.

“Sorry.”

“I mean, out here. It’s kind of cold out today.”

“Yesterday was nice,” Shiro says, a hint of cheekiness in his voice.

“Let me buy you breakfast,” Keith says. 

Shiro's breath hitches.

“As a date,” Keith clarifies. “I want to take you on a date.”

“You’re asking me out?”

Keith has tunnel vision right now; his breath shakes and his skin feels tight. He’s never done this before. He’s never wanted to. 

“I’m buying,” he says. Stupid, he already said that.

Shiro finally looks at him, a long, hard stare that leaves Keith squirming but no less committed. “You want a date,” he says finally, each word hitting Keith like a physical punch.

“I do,” Keith says. He squeezes Shiro’s hand, tries to convey every inch of honesty that way. 

“A date that both of us knows is a date.”

Keith nods. “Because I like you,” he adds. “Not for any other reason.”

“Well,” Shiro says, a soft smile pricking the corners of his lips, “then I guess it’s a good thing I like you too.”

***

They take Shiro’s famed motorcycle. She’s a thing of beauty and Keith does his best not to drool all over her shiny black metal, but it’s hard to do, especially once Shiro swings a leg over and turns expectantly to Keith.

Shiro kept the hoodie and the sweatpants on instead of changing into something maybe less revealing when his legs are spread over the seat of the motorcycle. The fabric of his sweatpants pulls tight in all the right places, ending in a tight cuff just above Shiro’s ankles, and in just a split second glance Keith can see Shiro’s cock outlined in perfect detail by the thin cotton folding in on itself. He’s not sure he can sit behind a man whose thighs strain at the very seams of his pants. 

Maybe Keith’s split second glance isn’t as subtle as he planned it to be. When he finally drags his eyes up to Shiro’s face, visor on his helmet flipped up, Shiro looks like he knows exactly what Keith is thinking about.

Keith scowls and blushes bright red, jamming the spare helmet over his head. Shiro could cause a car accident going out in public looking like that. Keith thinks  _ he _ might cause a car accident when he climbs on the bike behind Shiro, plastering his body against Shiro’s and getting his arms snug around Shiro’s abs. Every time Keith touches them, they’re more rock hard than he remembers. It’s the worst.

After a tortuous bike ride, they end up at a diner that’s seen better days, but it’s just off campus and serves the greasiest piles of hash browns Keith has ever been privileged to use as a hangover cure. While Keith is still reeling from the blessed experience of clinging to Shiro while speeding along on a motorcycle, Shiro swaps out his motorcycle helmet for a backwards hat, and his hand settles carefully at Keith’s lower back as they walk inside. 

They get seated at a square table near the back with chairs on all four sides. Keith lets Shiro walk ahead of him to choose his seat, and Keith instinctively wants to take the chair across from him. He pushes that down, making the bold choice to take the chair right next to Shiro instead.

He’s trying to do this right.

Shiro’s looking at him with a new kind of hope, the guarded look in his eyes fading. Keith doesn’t know whether to feel horrible about putting it there in the first place or grateful that it’s falling away the more Keith pushes himself into Shiro’s space. 

“I really haven’t done this before,” Keith says as they read over the menu. “Dating, I mean.”

“You’ve never been on a date?” Shiro sounds surprised, which is nice of him. Keith shakes his head and turns the sticky plastic menu over to examine the omelet selection. “Huh.”

Keith bites his lip. “Is it really that surprising?”

“It maybe explains some things,” Shiro says after a moment. “But I still don’t know why you thought I didn’t like—”

“Willful ignorance.” Keith’s face burns. It was denial, too, and purposeful misdirection, and possibly even a little bit of actual obliviousness. Keith doesn’t know what he’s doing right now, doesn’t have a plan, but he’ll be damned if he succumbs to his own dumb brain’s lies again. He was willfully ignorant, and now he has to deal with the consequences of his actions.

They put in their order for two cups of coffee, chocolate chip pancakes, and a giant farmer’s style breakfast for Shiro. Keith doesn’t look at the prices; his meagre bank account can and will take the hit.

Coffee and water arrives at their table. Keith pours too much sugar in his mug to make up for the bitter coffee Shiro forced onto him back at the house. He stirs it, spoon clinking against the sides, and asks, “So what do people do on dates?”

Shiro holds his mug up to his face in both hands, absolutely dwarfing it, elbows propped on the table. If he wore glasses—a concept that makes Keith’s fingers twitch—the steam rising off the coffee would make them fog up, but instead it just looks adorable curling up to meet the floof of silver hair poking through the hole of Shiro’s backwards baseball cap. It’s an olive green hat this time, and looks unfairly well-coordinated with the color of his eyes and skin. 

Other than the Throk incident, it’s difficult to recall a time when Keith ever didn’t enjoy just getting to look at Shiro. He’s fun to observe, and his handsomeness is the least part of it—he has expressive eyebrows, bright eyes, lips that trace out silent words while he processes his thoughts. When Shiro laughs, his face creases in all the right places, joyful lines at the corners of his eyes and just the hint of a dimple on his left cheek. They don’t linger, but one day Shiro is going to be the kind of handsome that wears a life full of joy on his face.

“We talk about ourselves,” Shiro says, jolting Keith back to the present. He has a moment of confusion while he figures out what they’re talking about—first dates. “Get to know each other, where we’re from, where we want to go.”

Personal things, then. Not Keith’s best subject.

Keith wraps both hands around his coffee mug and raises it to mirror Shiro’s position. “So tell me where you’re from,” he says. It feels like the most definitive move he’s made in this whole relationship.

“Two hours east,” Shiro answers. “My grandpa raised me, and I didn’t want to go far away for school. You?”

“Uh, Arizona,” Keith says. “I was in, um, foster care mostly. Met my mom when I was sixteen.”

“Wow. Are you close?”

Keith nods. He sips at his coffee before adding, “I was in—in a rough place. For a while. She helped me a lot, when I found her.”

Shiro doesn’t press, and Keith is so grateful for it. They’re straying uncomfortably close to territory not even Pidge knows about, things that Keith isn’t quite ready to admit to anyone. He’d like to be, someday, and maybe that person could even be Shiro before anyone else, but it doesn’t feel right to reveal the whole sordid past immediately, not on what’s supposed to be a first date. 

“Hey.”

Shiro’s hand lands on his knee, stilling its furious bouncing. Keith hadn’t even noticed the movement, but now that he does, he makes an attempt to also loosen his death grip on his coffee mug and the rising tension in his shoulders.

“It’s just me,” Shiro says, too kindly. “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Keith grabs Shiro’s hand before he can pull it all the way back. His own skin is clammy against the dry heat of Shiro’s palm, but the pleased surprise that flashes over Shiro’s face makes Keith secure his touch instead of pulling away.

He stares at the formica table in front of him, heat rising to his face. “Sorry. I, uh, it’s not stuff I really like to talk about. With anyone.”

Shiro taps the fingers of his right hand on the table, the metal clicking. “Trust me, I know something about that.”

Awkward silence descends. Keith lets go of Shiro’s hand in order to pour more sugar in his coffee, and while free, Shiro plays with the straw wrapper from his glass of water, folding the paper up into smaller and smaller rectangles. He looks nervous—this is Shiro, nervous, doing something banal with his hands in order to look busy. 

“Hey, can I—can I ask you something?” Shiro says, hesitant. “There’s one thing that’s been bothering me.”

“Of course,” Keith says, no small amount of dread in his stomach.

“Last weekend.” Shiro pauses, clearly thinking. “Before you—left, you said something about knowing I don’t really want something. What did you mean?”

Apparently they’re going for the heavy stuff, then. Keith shifts in his seat. “It was stupid.”

“Tell me.”

There’s gentleness in Shiro’s voice and every line of his body, the slope of his shoulders, and it makes Keith want to tell him everything. He wants to, but finding the words to express the depth of his insecurity is its own beast. 

“Keith. Do you think I don’t like you?”

Keith shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe.” He was foolish to assume the heart to heart ended at the frat house. “Or maybe you just don’t know me well enough to like me. Same thing.”

“Maybe I do.”

He’s so fucking reasonable it kills Keith. Shiro should be spitting mad right now, or at least upset, and instead he’s acting like Keith is the one who needs to be gently coddled. “But you  _ don’t  _ know me,” Keith says. Shiro winces, and it’s only then that Keith realizes how harsh his voice is. “I—sorry.” Deep breath. “I just mean, we haven’t known each other for very long. And I don’t understand how you could want—”

Keith cuts himself off in frustration. This conversation leaves him raw, bare, ripped apart and splayed open for Shiro in a way that talking about his mom never could. The words to describe it are sexual but the feeling is anything but, and Keith wants to run away to sew himself back up and lick his wounds. 

Vulnerability is not a word he learned to love.

“My ex,” Shiro says, instead of waiting for Keith to gather himself and finish speaking. Keith is grateful. “Not my only ex, but he's the one who matters, he—he had a habit of just deciding things for me, without asking. It didn't bother me if it was about what movie to watch, I didn't care, but one day he just . . . he decided I didn't love him enough. Or something.” Shiro stares down at his hands, unseeing, and Keith fights against the growing lump in his own throat. He wants to reach out and touch Shiro. “I don't know,” Shiro continues. “Maybe he was right.”

It’s a sad story that makes Keith ache inside, but he doesn’t understand why Shiro is telling him. He tries to ask, but Shiro shushes him. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t serious,” Shiro says. “If I don’t know you yet, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to. You’re—Keith, you have to understand by now, if all I wanted was sex, I . . . .” Shiro shakes his head. “This stopped being a one night stand a long time ago for me.”

Keith takes a long drink of coffee to have another moment to himself, but Shiro’s stare is unrelenting. “You’re too nice for me,” Keith says into his mug. Shiro snorts.

“Actually, I have a lot of text messages that prove you’re secretly a sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What, sweetheart?” A finger traces over the bones in the back of Keith’s hand, wrapped too tight around his coffee again. “Hey, sweetheart. Look at me.”

And that’s—oh, god, Keith’s face burns at the sound of that word falling from Shiro’s lips, fire curling up from his chest to cover him in the deepest red. His heart is zero to sixty in his chest, right where the word hits him like a bullet. The sappiest, most disgusting feeling fills Keith like gas taking up space. It’s far worse than hearing Shiro pant  _ baby _ in his ear and a thousand times more distracting.

“I’ll stop if you really want me to,” Shiro says, and his voice curls slyly over the last word: “Sweetheart.”

Keith wouldn’t ask him to stop if it was his last breath on Earth. He has to put his coffee down before he spills it on himself like the clumsy fool he is.

“Huh,” Shiro says. “I’m gonna remember this for later.”

Burying his face in his hands, Keith sighs. He can only fake annoyance, though, because he not so secretly loves it, he likes having Shiro’s attention on him like this, teasing and silly. 

“I thought you were cool,” Keith says, mournful.

“Hey. Hey, look at me.”

Keith peeks out from behind his fingers. Shiro has a small, pleased smile on his face, and he swoops in too quickly for Keith to react.

A kiss lands on Keith’s cheek. 

Shiro pulls back just as fast as he came, leaving Keith with nothing but a red face and the ghost of lips on his skin. His eyes are wide with shock and, if he’s honest, pleasure, and Shiro looks about the same.

“Sorry,” Shiro says, ducking his head a little. Is he really embarrassed? “You’re just—adorable. Couldn’t help it.”

Keith knocks over the sugar shaker in his haste to grab Shiro by the jaw and plant his own kiss on the soft skin of Shiro’s cheek.

Delight flashes across Shiro’s face, and the wide smile he turns on Keith is so bright it’s like the sun. Their fingers find each other again, magnetic, and Keith hangs on tight.

And from there, the conversation isn’t stilted anymore. They stop talking about the awful part, the feelings and the mess-ups, and move onto things like classes, the success of the fundraiser yesterday, and a handful of mutual friends. Normal things. Keith delights in telling Shiro the sordid tale of Pidge quivering on the edge of her seat, ready to bolt, when Hunk approached her in the coffee shop to ask her out. Shiro says that Hunk has been foisting vegan goods off on his brothers for the whole week, just for practice, and now he’s figured out why the sudden interest in veganism.

It’s a good date. Keith needed this reminder that he and Shiro work well together on a level that’s more than physical—they flirt, but it’s hardly the focus of their conversation. Just listening to Shiro’s voice is enthralling beyond any reasonable measure, and they don’t stop holding hands until they have to pick up their forks to eat.

Shiro makes it so easy. 

***

“Thanks for breakfast.”

“Sure.” Keith pushes the diner door open and steps out into the pleasant spring air. Shiro’s motorcycle is parked right in front of the door, helmets waiting for them.

“Hey.” Shiro snags a finger in the pocket of Keith’s jacket to get him to turn. “What’s next? The whole day’s still ahead of us.”

Keith flushes. “I have homework.”

“Ah. Right.” Shiro laughs, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. “I should probably do some of that too.”

“But I had fun,” Keith says.

Shiro steps toward him, bold, but Keith still can read the hesitance on his face and that—that hurts, to know that Shiro still isn’t certain of his welcome. Keith supposes that’s his own fault. Once bitten and twice shy, and all that.

“I want to do this again,” Keith says in a rush. “I’ve always had fun talking with you and I was—I was stupid before.”

Another step closer. “I feel like I’m supposed to disagree with that,” Shiro says. “But I don’t.”

“I can’t promise I’ll be good at this.”

Shiro is so close.

“But I want to try.”

“What is  _ this?”  _ Shiro asks, voice hardly a rumble. He wants precision, clarification, and he deserves that.

Keith clenches one fist tight to ground himself. “Dating,” he says. “If you want.”

“I think I can be on board with that.”

Somehow it ends with their bodies pressed together, Keith leaning back against the seat of Shiro’s bike and craning his head up to keep holding Shiro’s gaze. It’s instinct to lay his hands on Shiro’s chest to steady himself. Shiro’s thumb brushes over Keith’s jaw as the rest of his fingers bury themselves into Keith’s hair, huge palm spanning so much of Keith’s face.

“I like you like this,” Shiro murmurs, almost nonchalant, like the heat of his body isn’t sparking through Keith in a mess of sensation. “Showing you care. Being sweet.”

“That turn you on?” Keith means it as a joke, hardly serious, just the sort of thing to keep his mouth busy while his eyes dart uncontrollably down to Shiro’s lips.

But Shiro—beautiful, gentle, kind Shiro—growls out,  _ “Yes,”  _ and takes Keith’s mouth for his own. Keith gasps into the bite of his bottom lip, fists clinging to the fabric of Shiro’s hoodie, and he surges forward against Shiro with an immeasurable joy.

There’s relief in knowing that this, if nothing else, hasn’t changed between them. Shiro still kisses like it’s the only thing that’s ever been on his mind. He uses the hand on Keith’s face to tilt him in whichever direction Shiro wants, however he wants to pry Keith open in that moment, and Keith gives it to him gladly. 

Keith’s head spins. He manages to get one hand just inside the top of Shiro’s hoodie, nudging the zipper down far enough to rest his hand on warm, soft skin, a measure of grounding himself.

It’s near indecent, what they’re doing, but Keith can’t imagine wanting to stop.

Shiro whispers, “Fuck,” against his lips, pushes his mouth across Keith’s jaw, pressing sloppy near-bruises into his skin. Teeth scrape on the line of it and Keith whimpers, uncontrollable.

“Shit, I wanna take you home. You sure you gotta do homework?” Shiro says. 

Fuck the homework. Keith can’t believe Shiro’s still thinking about homework when he’s got Keith in his arms, leaning back against his bike in full view of the diner's big windows, and his nose is buried somewhere in the hair behind Keith's ear. His breath tickles and Keith squirms—not from discomfort but because he knows if he gives into Shiro's tugs at his waist, Keith is going to be in prime position to grind himself against Shiro's thigh. If it weren't for the windows, that wouldn't be an objectionable place to be.

“You don’t think we’re moving a little fast?” Keith pants.

“Probably.”

“But shouldn’t we—”

But Shiro has other plans, the kind that make Keith completely forget about math and science and whatever else he’s taking. Who cares about homework?

“Please,” Shiro says, straight into Keith’s ear, and he pulls hard on Keith’s waist, bringing their hips flush. Shiro is distractingly hard. “Please let me take you home so I can fuck you.”

Keith goes weak in the knees.

“You know I don’t—don’t just want you for your body. Right?” It’s hard to get all the words out between the kisses Shiro won’t stop laying on his mouth, but Keith tries his damn hardest. “This is—I’m—”

“Shut up,” Shiro says, half affectionate and half a hungry growl. Keith shivers. “Come back to my place.”

Keith nods, furious in his desire, and gets one hand up to Shiro's head to drag him back into a kiss. His fingernails scrape through the short buzzed hair. This is a need Keith didn't know he had.

The ride back to the frat house is torturous. Keith almost advocates they go to his dorm for the guaranteed privacy, but it's at least another ten minutes away, and he doesn't have that kind of patience. The only thing that keeps him from groping at every part of Shiro's body he can reach is the fact that they're flying though busy streets and Keith has a standing investment in reaching their destination in one piece. He settles for keeping his arms tight around Shiro's waist, marveling at how small it is compared to his shoulders. He wishes he didn't have to wear a helmet, that he could bury his face right in between Shiro's flexing shoulders as he weaves expertly through traffic.

Getting inside is a nightmare. They park down the block and walk up the street, falling into each other; Shiro sneaks a hand in the back pocket of Keith’s jeans and doesn’t let go. Not that Keith wants him to.

There’s some sort of—dare he say it—darty happening on the front lawn of the frat house, and as soon as the brothers see Shiro, they’re shouting for him to come drink with them. Shiro blushes, stutters, and his head ping pongs between them and Keith in a hilariously uncertain spectacle.

Shiro squeezes his ass, meaningful, but his gaze is directed at Matt waving him over. They have a choice to make: they could reevaluate their plans and join in for drinking games and hanging out. They really could. It might even be the smarter thing to do, considering they just made up. Maybe it would be better not to distract themselves with sex so soon.

But that wouldn’t be fun. Shiro is still frozen, so Keith makes the decision for him.

Keith stretches up on his toes to whisper in Shiro’s ear. “I’ll be upstairs,” he says. “Waiting.”

Shiro makes some kind of noise. Keith breaks away in time to catch the flare of lust in his eyes, and then he pushes past an already tipsy and demanding Lance to climb the stairs up to the porch and disappear inside.

Inside is empty. Keith is mildly surprised by this, but he shrugs, toeing off his boots into the mess of sneakers and sandals next to the door.

Desire prickles underneath his skin, the likes of which he’s never felt before. It’s somehow different from all the other times he’s walked into a room expecting to strip down and sleep with Shiro, filled with a depth of emotion Keith doesn’t quite know how to parse.

He suspects it has something to do with the number of times he held Shiro’s hand today.

Keith is halfway up the stairs when the front door bangs open so hard it cracks against the foyer wall and slams shut just as loudly. He jumps, nearly losing his footing as he spins around. It’s just Shiro, sprinting inside and shucking his shoes as fast as he possibly can, tripping over himself in his haste, and when he looks up and catches Keith’s gaze, there’s something rapacious in his eyes that’s just as new as the butterflies in Keith’s stomach.

Keith’s fear instinct kicks in, suddenly. He whirls around to sprint up the  stairs and down the hall to Shiro’s room, the startled remains of a laugh falling from his mouth. Pounding footsteps chase him, and Keith’s heart races as he skids to a stop, wrenching the door open.

Shiro gets him first.

He pins Keith against the doorframe, ignoring the open door to the right, and gets both hands on Keith’s face to devour him. His kisses in the parking lot were nothing in comparison, barely shadows of him now, and Keith does the only thing he can do: cling to Shiro and whimper into his mouth, let his bottom lip be bitten and his hair bunched up in a tight fist.

“Fuck,” Shiro hisses, sliding his mouth across Keith’s jaw. “Thinking I could never have you again was—“

“Shut up.” Keith crushes Shiro harder against him, but it’s not enough to keep him from talking. He’s so dangerous when he gets to talking.

“Baby, you have no  _ idea _ how bad I want you.” Shiro’s breath tickles the sensitive area under Keith’s ear, and if he doesn’t move his mouth off that spot of skin, Keith is going to have a bruise that’ll be impossible to hide.

He might like to have that bruise.

Shiro nips at Keith’s earlobe, hands flexing on Keith’s hips, and that’s all Keith can take. He shoves Shiro back with a strength that surprises them both and all but tears Shiro’s hoodie in two getting the zipper down and his arms out of the sleeves. The ridiculous sweatpants, though, those need to stay, at least for a little while.

“I wanna blow you,” Keith says, matter of fact. All the breath leaves Shiro in a rush.

“Yeah.” Shiro nods for emphasis.

Keith shoves him back until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed while Keith finally kicks the door closed behind him. He doesn’t want anyone to be able to walk by and see Shiro like this, not now that Keith is finally going to get his hands back on him.

Shiro with his legs spread in these sweatpants is a new kind of torture, one that Keith has to face and overcome quickly so that he can get on with his life. The thin fabric pulls tight all over, emphasizing his thick thighs and clinging to every single curve of his dick, already hard. There’s a tiny patch of wetness leaking through, betraying Shiro’s desperation in the most intimate of ways. 

Keith’s just trying not to drool, but it’s a lost cause by the time he falls to his knees. There’s no time to take off his own clothing. His hands dig into the meat of Shiro’s thighs, all rock-like muscle, and he faceplants mouth first onto the head of Shiro’s cock.

Giving a blowjob through fabric was never Keith’s ideal first course of action until today; pulling away and staring down the dark spot that Keith knows from the taste on his tongue is a mix of his own spit and Shiro’s wet cock, Keith wants to ruin the fabric. He wants to lick through the taste of cotton until Shiro comes in his pants, dirtying him up from the inside out.

It is, ironically, this very thought that makes it impossible for Keith to resist any longer. He sends the length of Shiro’s cock, head obscenely outlined, one last longing look, and then starts urging Shiro to push his pants down.

Keith hardly waits for him to get the waistband underneath his ass before pulling his cock out. Somehow, perennially, it’s even bigger than he remembers. He strokes one hand up it, reverent.

“Keith,” Shiro breathes. His pupils are blown so wide his eyes look black.

Keith pushes his thumb over the head of Shiro’s cock, smearing precome along with it. He asks, “Yeah?”

“Stop teasing.”

Keith’s mouth quirks up on one side without his permission, and he raises his eyebrows at Shiro. He’s never felt so playful in bed before. “Stop teasing,  _ what?” _

Shiro sighs, strokes his hand through Keith’s hair. “Stop teasing, please?” he says, his voice vaguely confused.

“Hmm.” Keith tightens his grip and strokes Shiro once, twice, and his hand settles at the base, holding him steady. “Say that again.”

“Please, Keith.” No pause before begging this time, and then he offers: “I missed your mouth.”

Keith blushes despite himself. He likes that more than expected. His head lists to the side, just an inch or two, and his cheek bumps against Shiro’s cock. “I missed yours, too,” he admits before he can get too embarrassed, and he wraps his lips around Shiro’s cock to the sight of Shiro gaping down at him, cheeks red.

The surprise doesn’t last long. Keith sucks hard as he moves, savoring the way his lips stretch and the musky scent of Shiro’s skin fills his nose, and Shiro’s left hand settles in his hair, proprietary and guiding.

“That’s it, baby,” Shiro says. He pushes Keith’s bangs back from his face.

It's starkly reminiscent of their first time, at least in Keith’s animalistic brain. He has the same feeling of desire to have Shiro overwhelm him, to choke on Shiro’s cock, to look so pretty while doing it that Shiro can’t keep his eyes or his hands off Keith. He’s not in doubt about that last one, knows it will happen regardless, but there’s something deep inside him that yearns for it, that’s missed Shiro so much. He wants Shiro to  _ take. _

But Shiro is just as careful with him as he ever was. He knows exactly what Keith can take, how much he’s willing to give Shiro, and he still treats Keith like something worth gentling himself for. No forcing, no yanking on Keith’s hair, no whining that he’s not sucking or licking or gagging enough—none of it. As much as Keith wants to let Shiro use him, it gets him hot to know that Shiro will always wait for him to say it. 

And still, Shiro is so far from a gentleman; Shiro bides his time, waiting for the best moment to strike, the one that will really wreck Keith because he’s already waited for something more for so long.

Keith’s blown some real dickheads in his life, and now he wonders if Shiro might have been love at first blowjob.

Keith makes no secret out of how much he loves sucking cock. He’s eager, he moans around the head of Shiro’s cock, gets it nudging down his throat and feels his eyes stutter closed in bliss. Spit runs down his jaw and Shiro’s fingers get caught in the mess as he pets Keith’s face, down his cheek and across his jaw. Keith holds on tight to one thick thigh; Shiro’s hips twitch with Keith’s rhythm and Keith’s fingers dig into his sweatpants and down into his skin. He imagines tiny finger shaped bruises blooming on Shiro’s skin, and heat rockets through him.

This is the kind of power he likes. Knowing that it’s Shiro above him, Shiro’s hands in his hair, Shiro’s cock that Keith is choking around, it's only Shiro Keith wells up with tears for—that just makes it a thousand times better. 

Keith drags himself off Shiro’s cock with a ragged breath. He pants, lips brushing the head while his hand moves slowly.

“That’s so good,” Shiro murmurs. His big hand pets over Keith’s hair. He’s a gentle giant in so many ways, but especially now when he could so easily overwhelm Keith. 

Whatever he would ask, Keith would give it to him gladly.

Shiro says, “I love your hair. Love how soft it is, how pretty you look.” Again, he pushes Keith’s bangs off his blushing red forehead and gathers it all up into his fist, holding it away from Keith’s wet mouth and chin. Keith knows it’s because he’s just being considerate, that it’s just the kind of person Shiro is, but it would be so quick to use his hold to feed his cock back into Keith’s mouth and hold him down. 

What a stellar idea.

“Fuck my mouth,” Keith says, instead of anything appropriate like a thank you or a compliment in return. His eyes flick between Shiro’s face and his imposing cock, just inches from Keith’s lips. 

“Keith . . . .”

“Do it.”

Shiro doesn’t look so much hesitant as he does disbelieving. Keith’s a little disbelieving himself, but the truth is, Shiro’s the only guy he trusts to do this. It was the stuff of fantasies, the sort of thing he thought about while falling asleep at night, one hand stuffed in his mouth and the other wrapped tight and messy around his dick, and now he can’t imagine anyone but Shiro. 

Shiro gets a sharp glint in his eye and squeezes his hand tighter until just the hint of pain pricks at Keith's scalp. Metal fingers caress his cheek. “That’s what you want?”

Keith nods, squeezing Shiro’s cock tight and pressing a kiss just under the head. “Yeah,” he whispers, pressing his tongue against Shiro. The only word he doesn’t say is  _ please. _

He half expects Shiro to dive right into the gift that Keith is offering him, but of course he doesn’t. Of course Shiro takes the time to trace a thumb over Keith’s lips where they make a seam around the head of Shiro’s cock, and of course when Keith gets impatient and moves to take more, Shiro exercises his fistful of hair to keep Keith in place. Keith moans at the sharp sting.

It’s over far too soon, though, as he loosens his grip in Keith’s hair. “I’m going to stand up.”

They shuffle around for a moment until Shiro towers above him, hold secure on Keith’s hair and cock lingering too many inches away from Keith’s lips. Keith can’t stop staring at it, but he’s caught in a conflict because Shiro’s eyes are hot and burning and Keith can’t decide for the life of him what he wants to pay attention to.

“Has anyone ever told you how incredible you are?” Shiro asks, a laugh caught in his throat. “C’mere. Open your mouth, baby.”

Keith so badly wants to take it all.

Shiro presses inside him with a remarkable confidence, until he’s nudging at the back of Keith’s throat, asking for something that Keith desperately wants to give. This first slide is gentle and far too slow, but Shiro is calculating as he works his way inside. He sighs soft through his nose when he reaches Keith’s limit, as deep inside as he can be while Keith’s eyes leak tears from the stretch. 

He gets one beat, two, and then it’s off to the races.

Shiro isn’t gentle with him, and he isn’t mean. The way he fucks Keith is rough, but it’s challenged by the softness in his voice as he talks to Keith. He pushes carefully inside and holds Keith there, watches him struggle to adjust and calls him beautiful, calls him good; Shiro makes him choke and then calls him sweetheart.

Keith doesn’t know what he expected.

He clutches hard at Shiro’s thighs as his mouth is used, breath coming in panting starts and stops as Shiro takes whatever he wants. Every time he falls into a rhythm, catches onto the plan, Shiro takes it away from him, and it’s hot, it’s  _ so  _ hot, it’s everything Keith imagined it would be.

So of course Shiro has to give him something else to think about.

“Look at yourself, baby,” Shiro whispers. Keith mistakes it for regular dirty talk for a second but then Shiro pulls him off his cock and turns his head to the side. Propped up against the wall, between the closet and the bed and incidentally right across from where they stand, is a mirror. It’s one of those ten dollar ones Target sells every September, and all Keith can focus on is how the cheap black plastic frame perfectly captures his wrecked face. 

His hair is a mess. His chin is shiny with spit, lips red, and his eyes are dark with desire that stands to devour anything that gets in its way. 

There’s hunger but also possessiveness, and Shiro looks no different. He stands tall and proud, like the kind of man Keith was meant to worship on his knees. Shiro is thick, muscular, toned, scarred, and more beautiful than any one person has any right being, and a sense of belonging strikes Keith. He likes being here, right where he is, and it has absolutely everything to do with Shiro.

“I love seeing you on your knees,” Shiro says, voice so deep that it rumbles like thunder.

Keith leans in, Shiro’s grip lax enough to let him mouth down the side of Shiro’s cock, eyeing himself in the mirror the whole time. He likes the look on Shiro’s face when Keith shows off for him. He blinks, makes his eyes heavy-lidded as he slowly strokes Shiro’s cock and presses his face against it. 

“Love your dick in my mouth,” Keith says, dragging his tongue from the root of Shiro’s cock all the way up to his head. It looks as good in the mirror as he had hoped.

That’s all it takes for Shiro to haul him upright, seeking Keith’s mouth with his own as he wraps one arms around Keith’s waist and pulls him in tight. He devours Keith with a new ferocity that Keith is helpless to match—he’s so happy to be along for the ride.

Keith is the one who has to break it, for the sake of his own lungs. He laughs when Shiro whines, says, “Guess you liked that a lot.” It rolls out of him low, fighting against his abused throat. He savors the feeling.

Shiro kisses his jaw almost tenderly, almost but for the brush of teeth it ends in. “You look  _ so _ good like that.” Shiro presses the words into his skin, and it’s enough to wipe the smirk off of Keith’s face.

“Thought you’d want to finish like that,” Keith says, hands skating up and down Shiro’s bare chest. It’s massive, compared to Keith’s palms.

“Hm.” Shiro’s hum is noncommittal but his fingers digging into Keith’s ass are anything but. His eyes search Keith’s, and it’s all Keith can do to meet his gaze. “Sweetheart,” he says, like it isn’t the most devastating word he can say, “I really wanna be inside you.”

There’s something about the way he phrases it, the way his tongue curls over the words,  _ something;  _ it makes Keith breathless. He nods because it’s all he can do, and Shiro’s answering kiss is full of an inarticulable hunger.

Shiro urges Keith’s jacket off and pulls the T-shirt underneath over his head. His touch on Keith’s skin is electric—everywhere his fingers trace burns with need.

The way Shiro touches him is fiercely warm. His excitement is palpable, touch just a little too forceful and grasping to pass for tenderness, even if the way he’s kissing Keith screams of sweetness. Keith tries to return it in equal measure, taking control of the kiss and nipping at Shiro’s bottom lip in warning when he tries to fight back. He wants to kiss Shiro like he deserves and convey every dirty, intimate thought Keith has about him.

He has a lot of those.

Getting the rest of their clothes off is a process that Keith gladly leaves to Shiro. While Shiro is distracted with the whereabouts of Keith’s pants, Keith moves his mouth to Shiro’s neck and fits his hands to Shiro’s chest and squeezes. He delights in the hitch in Shiro’s breath, the shock in his eyes when he rears back to look at Keith.

Keith pinches one nipple and Shiro gasps. His eyes are wide.

“What?” Keith asks. He does it again, and Shiro has to cut himself off from moaning. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

With a renewed sense of fierceness, Keith kicks his pants and underwear off the rest of the way, leaving both of them naked as he pushes Shiro back down to the bed. He climbs into Shiro’s lap without pause and kisses him once, messy, before moving his mouth down to his chest. Shiro’s hand on Keith’s shoulder turns to nails digging into his skin.

Keith bites at the skin just to the side of Shiro’s nipple. “You like this,” he says, delight evident in his voice.  _ Like  _ isn’t strong enough, though—when Keith switches sides with his mouth and pinches the other between his fingers, rolling it between them, Shiro moans like he’s being tortured. He says something, Keith’s name, maybe, or a curse word, and he clenches his fist in the back of Keith’s hair all over again. 

Keith smirks. He can’t help wanting to be in charge when it’s Shiro shuddering to pieces beneath him.

He teases Shiro with his lips and fingers, feeling Shiro shudder and shake around him. Shiro’s hips twitch, searching for friction, but Keith denies him; he stays shifted back enough that Shiro’s cock can’t find purchase to grind against him.

“You really liked that,” Keith says in wonder when he finally lifts his head. Shiro’s chest is covered in teeth marks and spit, his dark nipples standing at attention. Keith can’t help but brush his thumb over one just to watch Shiro gasp with oversensitivity.

“I don’t think anyone’s—ah!—paid so much attention to me there,” Shiro pants out, cheeks rosy and eyes black. “Feels different when I touch them.”

“Different?” Keith gets both of them between his fingers and pulls, fascinated by the way Shiro arches out to meet him and moans.

Shiro bites out, “Less sensitive.”

Keith hums and smooths the flats of his palms up and down Shiro’s chest, leaning in to press a kiss to Shiro’s throat. “You should get the lube.”

It takes him a minute of shuddering gasping to move away from Keith’s still-wandering hands. Shiro leans for the end table and fumbles around until he’s got it in hand, heedless of the way the stretch serves to accentuate every single one of his muscles, made all the more beautiful by the new marks decorating his chest. Keith struggles not to drool.

All it takes for Keith to melt against Shiro is one finger pressing into his hole, bold like it knows its welcome and exactly what it needs to do to turn Keith to a pile of mush. There’s really no substitute for Shiro’s fingers, thick and dexterous as they are, and by the time one has already sunk inside, Keith demands more. He’s suddenly, achingly empty, ravenous for Shiro’s touch to fill him. 

Keith does his best to spread his legs farther apart for Shiro, made difficult by how widely he’s already sprawled across Shiro’s lap. 

Shiro chuckles as he shifts to accommodate. “Eager?” he whispers.

“Shut up.” Keith pinches his nipple for good measure, but all it gets him is a gasp and a twist of a smile. Two fingers, then, and Shiro grins, devious.

“Is it crass if I can’t stop thinking about last time?” he says, his gaze burning straight through Keith. The knuckle of his third finger nudges at Keith's entrance, just a tease, but it's enough to make Keith dizzy as he remembers.

Keith swallows and rasps, "I don't—I don't think I'm up for a repeat performance." He doesn't have the patience.

"No?"

Shiro is too good with his hands for him to seriously expect any real conversation out of Keith, but Keith isn't a quitter. He stutters, "Asshole," without any real heat as Shiro drives his fingers purposefully inside Keith and finds exactly what he's looking for. Keith lurches, a groan punched out of his chest, and he slings his arms around Shiro's neck to hold him close.

"It's your sarcasm I fell for first," Shiro says.

Keith doesn't know if that was a joke, but he plays along and manages honesty on accident. "You called me," he says.

"What?"

"You called me," Keith repeats, rolling his hips to remind Shiro that his hand is supposed to be doing things down there, not just keeping Keith full. “On the phone, was the—was the first time anyone’s ever done that.” Shiro presses another finger inside, and Keith has to bite his lip against a whimper. It shouldn’t be possible to be so hard yet so unfulfilled. “You’re the first.”

“Oh, baby,” Shiro says, voice low and filled with a dark understanding. “I think I was a lot of firsts for you.”

The way his fingers stretch Keith, the way his mouth feels underneath Keith’s when Keith pitches forward for a kiss, the way he’s got his free hand on Keith’s ass, spreading him open even further for Shiro to delve into—it all adds up to something Keith has never experienced before.

In the light of day, in the pale sunshine pouring in through the window at the end of the bed, Shiro is beautiful. Keith can’t think except to take in the sight. Shiro’s patch of white hair is lighter like this, his face more boyish when it’s not obscured by the harsh shadows created by the desk lamp. They’ve never had sex in the light of the sun before. 

Taking him in, looking at him, makes Keith need more—immediately, desperately, he needs Shiro seated deep inside him.

“I’m ready, I’m—c’mon, Shiro.”

Shiro groans and shoves his face into the crook of Keith’s neck, as if he’s suffering from being told to put his dick inside Keith. He can act the fool on his own time, though; Keith exercises his considerable leverage from his position to slide off Shiro’s fingers and give him a hard stare.

“I was having fun,” Shiro protests.

“You can have fun later.” Here and now, Keith reaches behind himself to wrap his hand around Shiro’s cock and stroke. “I really,  _ really  _ need you to fuck me now.”

He needs lube still, but Keith isn’t above teasing while he waits for Shiro to dig that up from wherever it got to—he presses the head of Shiro’s cock against his hole, just enough to startle a grunt out of Shiro.

“Wait,” Shiro says, stopping Keith before he can get too far with his attempted seduction. “Like this.”

Shiro lifts him up and spins him until Keith is in the middle of the bed on hands and knees. Keith gets to watch Shiro stand up from the bed, walk to the mirror, and pick it up to prop it against the open closet door facing the bed, bringing Keith’s flushed face into full relief. Keith stares at himself.

“Really?”

Shiro doesn’t answer him until he’s climbed back up on the bed behind Keith, but by that time Keith doesn’t need the explanation. All Keith can see is himself and Shiro’s abs, and he doesn’t care for the view of the former but just imagining watching the latter work while Shiro fucks him is enough to get Keith’s mouth watering. He shifts, impatient, and walks his hands up the bed to lower himself down and lengthen the stretch of his spine, to supplicate himself for Shiro. 

A wide hand smooths its way up the center of Keith’s back, pushing him deeper down, and then Shiro leans down so he can get his mouth right next to Keith’s ear. He loves to do that.

“I want you to see exactly what I see,” Shiro says. “See how you look the first time I’m putting my dick in you, the faces you make.”

Keith burns beneath him. He opens his mouth to respond but Shiro intercepts the words, pushing two fingers into his mouth in a parody of a gag. Keith moans into them as he feels Shiro position his cock behind Keith, teasing Keith with what’s to come.

“Open your eyes,” Shiro says. “Watch yourself.”

He hadn’t even noticed his eyes slipping closed. Keith eyes himself in the mirror—it’s a hard angle on his neck with his shoulders pressed to the bed, but it’s worth it to see Shiro bent over Keith, covering him, making him look so tiny in comparison. His shoulders are twice as broad as Keith’s, one bicep flexing as he uses that arm to prop himself up. 

Shiro pushes inside Keith slow and unrelenting, savoring the breach and letting Keith feel every single movement opening him up. He doesn’t recognize the person staring back at himself in the mirror; they’re a wild thing with black eyes and cherry red lips stretched wide around two metal fingers, panting out huffs of breath that hardly sound human. Shiro rocks his hips hard to push the last bit of the way inside, his hips slamming into Keith with a force that puts stars behind his fluttering eyelids.

Watching himself get fucked is more intense than Keith could have imagined.

Shiro rights himself above Keith, cutting off his head at the top of the mirror. His hands are big, gripping Keith’s hips so that his thumbs almost meet in the middle of his lower back. Keith counts three visible bruises across Shiro’s chest, ones Keith made with his own mouth, and he’s overcome with the desire to leave more. 

“Fuck,” he bites out once Shiro starts to move. It’s so good, too much and not enough all at once—he missed the stretch of Shiro inside him, the heat kindled in his belly by the knowledge that it’s Shiro doing this to him. No one, Keith thinks wildly, could make him feel this way. No one else could taunt Keith with fucking that’s more grinding than movement and still make him feel seconds away from losing it all over the sheets.

He plants his hands under himself and pushes upward onto his hands and knees, body rocking in time with Shiro’s movements. He needs to see.

Keith stares at himself in the mirror—his mouth hangs open, his cock bobs between his legs, there’s a wild look in his eye that doesn’t seem entirely human. He wishes he could see how thick Shiro’s cock looks inside him, how stretched his hole is. How greedy. He feels greedy like this, feels like everything Shiro was giving him wasn’t enough for Keith so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He fucks himself down on Shiro’s cock with a ferocity that surprises himself, but the steady way Shiro ducks his head down to meet his gaze in the mirror betrays the thought that, maybe, Keith is just like this all the time. Maybe he’s always this desperate, maybe he’s always begging Shiro to tell him how tight and hot he is.

Maybe he’s always crying out when Shiro slides a hand all the way down his spine to trace the tip of one finger around his hole. Keith sobs out a broken breath, almost begging.

“Open up for me,” Shiro says, fascinated by the stretch of Keith’s hole around his cock. It doesn’t fully compute but Keith shudders, grinding down instead of bouncing, and then suddenly Shiro nudges the tip of a finger inside him, pressing past the rim and tightening the stretch.

“Oh,” Keith breathes. It’s hardly even a word. Shiro pushes deeper, slides his cock almost all the way in and takes him in this new, terrifying way. Keith can’t believe how much he wants the push to his absolute limits. 

“Is there anything you wouldn’t take?” Shiro growls. “Last time I put my fist inside you, and now my cock isn’t big enough. Fuck, baby.”

“It is,” Keith gasps. He grinds down, hardly thinking, and Shiro’s finger presses deeper along the cock inside him.

“You’re so fucking  _ tight.” _

Shiro uses his other hand to help Keith move, little rolls of his hips that are somehow even more overwhelming than his frantic pace from before. Another finger nudges at his hole, more curious than anything, but Keith shakes his head, frantic.

“No more,” he whispers. His arms shake beneath him. “I can't—I cant—”

Shiro shushes him. “I won't, baby.”

The tenderness of his voice belies the finger riding Keith hard next to his dick. The nasty wet sounds of him fucking Keith overtake the entire room; all Keith can hear is Shiro’s panting breath. 

He’s stretched so wide, so tight around Shiro, overwhelming in the most delicious and painful way, and the steady, driven pace that Shiro fucks him at pushes Keith more and more out of his mind. His arms shake so hard he falls to the bed again, the only thing keeping him up the firm grip Shiro has on his hips, and Keith claws at the mattress.

He begs, begs for the one man who deserves to hear it, and Shiro—

Shiro slides out completely.

It's not long, just enough time for a whine to build up in Keith's chest but not for it to spill out, but he's so fucking empty. The only thing he wants is Shiro's cock back inside him, and when it finally slams back in, one smooth, hard thrust, Keith sobs into his fist. His half strangled whine gets lodged somewhere in his throat as Shiro does it again, meeting absolutely no resistance as he fucks back into Keith, taking him from nothingness to everything.

Keith’s legs tremor. The mattress quakes beneath him as Shiro teases the head of his cock over Keith’s hole and then fucks inside with a harsh slap, knocking a high-pitched sigh out of Keith’s mouth. Shiro laughs, breathless, and it happens three more times before Keith’s legs just give out. 

He slumps to the bed a panting, sweating wreck of a man while Shiro touches him with firm, gentle hands, shushing Keith with soothing noises. Shiro passes one hand over Keith’s ass, spreading him open so he can stare right down at Keith and admire what he looks like when he’s beaten red and exposed. That’s the thing that makes Keith blush in the end, makes him squirm until Shiro pulls back to let him roll over.

“You stopped,” he complains, reaching out one hand. Shiro meets him halfway, tangling their fingers together and giving Keith’s racing heart another reason to thump out of time.

Shiro says nothing, bumping his lips against Keith’s in something that’s hardly a kiss as he pulls one of Keith’s thighs up and pushes it back so he can settle between Keith’s legs. The casual way he inserts himself into Keith’s space says things that words never could, and Keith drags his other leg up, still weak from arousal as he wraps it around Shiro’s waist and tugs him in.

This time, when Shiro pushes in, Keith gets to feel the shiver of his breath. It’s an innocuous detail, but it’s the physical manifestation of his desire, his tell that betrays exactly how much this affects him, just as much as Keith. 

Shiro leans down, planting his weight with one hand while the other continues to hold Keith’s hand tight. Keith pulls their hands to his mouth, brushing his mouth over the back of Shiro’s metal knuckles. In this position, everything feels tighter and threatens to overwhelm Keith with friction, and with Shiro grinding deep inside him, never enough movement to actually satisfy, Keith welcomes in the tidal wave of emotion.

“Baby,” Shiro says. Baby, like he thinks Keith knows how to handle hearing that word. Baby, while he disentangles their fingers to spread Keith wide for him, stretching Keith’s legs to obscene limits against his chest while Shiro gets his knees under himself. He could run Keith into the mattress like this, ruin him.

Keith looks up at him, mouth hanging open as he pants past the stretch, the fullness, and he knows he’s going to beg. 

“Tell me how much you want it,” Shiro says. His head dips to press a kiss to the inside of Keith’s knee.

“Faster,” Keith says. It’s a demand, a prayer, but Shiro is infuriating. He shakes his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips, and Keith says his name.

It gets him nothing.

“Fuck, you need it bad,” Shiro whispers, like it’s somehow a surprise and he isn’t torturing Keith. “Ask me for it, Keith, beg me.”

The way he rolls his hips makes Keith ache with pleasure but he’s trapped in a position without any leverage to move. Reaching for Shiro’s shoulders and digging his fingers into thick muscle doesn’t change the set of Shiro’s face, nor does moaning Shiro’s name, or anything else that Keith tries. Caught in Shiro’s grasp, wanting more but having none—it makes his cock throb painfully. Shiro leans down, the weight of him straining at Keith’s hips, and he tells Keith again to beg. 

Keith chokes on his tongue, tries again to roll his hips along Shiro’s cock sitting heavy inside him, but it’s a doomed enterprise. He’s trapped, caged in, and he doesn’t want out, he just wants more.

“Please,” he says, hardly noticed the words falling from his lips. “Shiro,  _ please.” _

Shiro rocks inside him properly once and then stills back into taunting Keith until he says it again and again until telling Shiro  _ please _ is nothing but second nature, until he’s practically sobbing out his need. 

“Shiro, Shiro,” Keith moans. It’s the only word he knows other than please, and he winds his arms tight around the back of Shiro’s neck, drawing him ever closer and forcing Keith’s knees even further down. He’d love to get them up over Shiro’s shoulders, cross his ankles behind his neck, but the physical impossibility of his height next to Shiro’s means that caught around the crook of Shiro’s elbows is going to have to be good enough. 

Shiro takes him with a ferocity Keith doesn’t recognize but a desire he feels soul-deep. Their mouths brush, and Keith tries to kiss him but getting his body to listen to him right now is near impossible. He wants to do things he can’t quite scrounge up the effort for, not while Shiro is splitting him apart and setting all his pieces back in order.

Keith doesn’t pause to feel bad about his nails scoring marks into Shiro’s back. It’s the only scrap of leverage he has, the only bit of fight he has left in him; he moans loud for Shiro and cranes his head back so Shiro can bite at his neck.

He wants so much, but he can’t have it all. Eventually, Shiro breaks, his hips stuttering inside Keith.

Keith gets to watch him come apart, his perfect face breaking into something holy as he comes inside Keith. His dragging nails turn to gentle touches while Shiro pants above him, head hanging and his elbows the only thing keeping him from slumping forward onto Keith. 

The air between them is no less intense, but the mood is gentled down to something almost unrecognizable. Shiro picks his head up and fixes Keith with a look that speaks volumes—softness, possession, gratefulness, desire. He kisses Keith, and it’s sloppy and full of emotion, one hand cupping Keith’s cheek like this is some kind of romance movie and not a post-orgasmic moment of exhaustion.

Keith’s cock aches at just the sweetest brush of Shiro’s tongue against his lip. His legs fall back down to the bed, one by one, and Shiro kisses him with deeper intent as his body comes back to him.

“Baby,” Shiro says, and he kisses Keith hard. “Let me make you come.”

_ “Yes.” _

It’s a scramble to get into the position Shiro evidently has in mind. He strokes Keith’s cock once to taunt him, and then he rolls them over, settling Keith on top of his chest while his hands stroke over Keith’s ass. 

It’s kind of a weird position, considering that all Keith wants to do is get off, and so he asks, “What am I supposed to do up here, exactly?”

“Be good,” Shiro says, like that’s an answer, and then he follows it up: “Sit on my face.”

Keith gapes down at him, disbelieving even as arousal strikes him hard.

“Are—you’re sure?”

Shiro chuckles, a low raspy sound that goes straight to Keith’s dick. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he confesses, almost conspiratorial. “Promise I’ll make it good.”

What a ridiculous thing to say. As if Shiro has ever struggled with making Keith feel good while getting his mouth on him like this, the way he likes even though it’s the filthiest thing Keith can think of. 

It takes them a minute to get situated. Keith is nervous, wary all of a sudden, and doesn’t quite know what to do with his limbs until Shiro gives up on him shuffling around and gets his hands on Keith’s hips to just yank him into place. Keith doesn’t even have a moment to think about Shiro’s comfort before Shiro licks into him, tongue swiping hard over Keith’s hole. 

Keith is tentative, uncertain, one hand planted on the wall in front of him and the other ghosting along the top of Shiro’s head. At first it’s no different than any other time, but when Keith gets the rocking of his hips down in time to the movement of Shiro’s tongue, it’s like magic happens. Like this, Keith can push back into Shiro’s mouth, make the whole of him into something Keith can use for pleasure, and he can’t contain himself for very long until Keith has to get a hand on his own cock.

“Shiro,” he moans, gathering strength each time he says it.

What finally gets to Keith is the knowledge that what Shiro is doing to him is so filthy, so messed up and nasty, eating his own come out of Keith and moaning like it’s the most delicious meal he’s ever tasted—

The ragged noise Keith makes as he comes is indescribable. Shiro’s hands tighten their grip on his thighs while it happens, out of excitement or something else, Keith doesn’t know. He stutters over Shiro, one fist beating at the wall in front of him as he hunches in on himself, ever conscious of the need not to crush Shiro beneath him.

But it’s good, it’s so good--Keith wants to take and take, wishes his oversensitive body could spend forever letting Shiro’s tongue take him apart. 

They need to do this again. They need to do it the other way around so Keith can experience it all, and they need to do it while Shiro has thick stubble on his cheeks and chin. That scratch of pleasure radiating around the center of the burst of soft pleasure sounds beautiful, and Keith slumps to the side with shaking limbs and stars in his eyes at the thought.

Shiro helps Keith get his legs back in order without kicking anything important. He laughs at Keith’s dazed face and wipes his wet chin with the back of his hand.

Keith grumbles until they’re settled together properly, Shiro laying on his back so Keith can sprawl over his chest, proprietary. Like this, he can see the marks on the swell of Shiro’s pecs, can tuck one thigh in between Shiro’s and revel in the feeling of soft leg hair brushing against his sensitive skin.

With two arms, Shiro holds him. It’s no surprise that Keith just sort of . . . dozes in and out for a while.

***

The sad truth is that, eventually, all good things must come to an end. When the haze starts to lift from Keith’s mind, he has to face the facts. There’s no way around it: no spooning with a thick bicep pillowing his head is worth the consequences if Keith spends the rest of the day in bed.

“Don’t get mad,” Keith says, “but I have to go.”

Shiro narrows his eyes.

_ “Not,”  _ Keith continues, reaching behind him to lay a silencing finger on Shiro’s lips. It’s more like an ineffectual batting in the vague direction of Shiro’s face. “Not because I’m running away. But I haven’t done any of my homework this week, and Professor Montgomery will be happy to kick me out of the aerospace program if I turn in a blank problem set.”

With a sigh, Shiro relaxes. “You had me worried for a minute there,” he says, “and I’m fully prepared to let you leave this bed.” His arm tightens around Keith’s waist. “As long as you give me verbal confirmation before going that we’re one hundred percent on the same page this time. 

Keith blushes and smushes his face into Shiro’s elbow. “You’re gonna make me say it?”

“If I don’t hear the b-word out of you, I’m not letting you leave this bed.” For emphasis, Shiro snuggles into him and slings a leg over Keith’s hip, effectively trapping him there. It’s not a bad feeling.

“That’s not as much of a threat as you think it is.”

Shiro snorts. “Either way, I win.”

Keith considers that for a moment while he breathes in the scent of Shiro’s skin. “If I say it,” he ventures, “would you wanna come study with me?”

“You don’t think I’d be distracting?”

“Probably,” Keith says, but he finds he doesn’t care a bit. Maybe it’s the post-sex hormones talking, but Keith isn’t interested in leaving Shiro’s side right now, and he can’t think of a better way to test drive this relationship than over coffee and homework. It’s what locked down his friendship with Pidge, in the end.

“You wanna go to that coffee shop off State?”

Keith represses the urge to sigh deeply. They frequent the same gym, the same off-campus coffee shop, and have the same major—it’s a miracle they went an entire semester without actually meeting. Thank god Keith doesn’t have to upend his life to avoid Shiro forever now that they’ve worked this out. Ridiculous.

He tells Shiro, “Sounds good,” and makes to get up, but Shiro doesn’t budge. Keith is confused, but only momentarily.

“You haven’t said it,” Shiro says, smug. 

“Fuck,” Keith says. 

“We’re not doing that either until you say it.”

Keith laughs despite himself and wiggles his ass until it’s pushed firmly back against Shiro, teasing. Shiro doesn’t even complain, just grinds his hips against Keith in return. A reluctant spike of arousal twists in Keith’s belly at the touch of Shiro’s cock against him.

Shiro pulls Keith tight against him, kissing the back of his neck with a wet smack that’s more spit than lip. Keith—well, he kinda likes it.

“Fine,” Keith says, squirming back from the wet kisses Shiro keeps laying against his vulnerable skin. He loves to press an advantage whenever he has it, but Keith can’t tell if Shiro is trying badly to get Keith back in the mood or just wants to hear him giggle while he fights half-heartedly out of Shiro’s grasp. Keith fights his way around in Shiro’s arms. It’s a struggle, but he plasters himself ever closer, naked skin to naked skin and gets his eyes on Shiro’s face so he can look him in the eye. 

“Boyfriend,” Keith says, the firmness of his voice not betraying the fluttering in his stomach and heart. “You’re my boyfriend.”

Shiro’s answering smile is dizzying and brighter than the sun. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear you say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who's gone on this ride with me & enjoyed this fic series--it's been a trip!! Thank you so, so much for reading. Leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed, and find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/disloyalpunk) for updates on my next writing project. <3
> 
> [frat au headcanons & extra content](http://disloyalpunk.tumblr.com/tagged/frat%20au)   
>  [frat au playlist](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fuser%2Ftmwec387u6xznz1uqwvbnb0ic%2Fplaylist%2F6LdydV20uvrJnSwUC5TXOX%3Fsi%3DX7_cBxNbThCUc4ze432xQQ&t=ZjMyM2EwNDZiMTM3NThjZDgzMjgxMmMwYjE5ZmQxYzI0ODdiM2NkYyxvcGRvbVVJYg%3D%3D&b=t%3ABOIVI0DcLn4kw-eHXAfhIw&p=http%3A%2F%2Fdisloyalpunk.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F177085055523&m=0)

**Author's Note:**

> it's time for them to get their shit together.
> 
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